The Political Quarterly, Vol. 92, No. 1, January–March 2021 Scotland’s Faltering Green Industrial Revolution EWAN GIBBS Abstract Renewable energy has long been central to SNP policy making and Scottish independence. During the 2014 referendum, green electricity generation was presented as a means for Scot- land to achieve ‘reindustrialisation’. Despite a world-leading transition in electricity supply, the Scottish government has struggled to develop renewables manufacturing. Scotland’s lar- gest offshore engineering company, BiFab, entered administration in 2020. This article explains the faltering of Scotland’s green industrial revolution. First, it assesses renewables’ privileged place in SNP perspectives, underlining its deep roots in North Sea oil and criti- cisms of British governments’ mismanagement of offshore opportunities. Second, the failure of market-led policy making to provide the anticipated industrial benefits from offshore wind developments is explained through the domineering role of foreign state-owned enter- prises and global supply chains in the UK’s renewables sector. The conclusion argues that older nationalist perspectives offer remedies, but these require a more active industrial policy that diverges from the current approach of the Scottish Government. Keywords: Scotland, energy, renewables, SNP, oil, wind BiFab demonstrated two important differ- Introduction ences from the Thatcher era of market attri- THE SIGHT OF decaying workplaces and tion and an uncaring British government. The unmanned cranes are emblematic of Scot- social democratic instincts of Scotland’s newly land’s late twentieth century, not the nation’s established devolved polity was confirmed future. In the music video for the Pro- through the role of the Scottish Government claimers’ 1987 breakthrough single, ‘Letter in brokering a package that facilitated a take- from America’, the Reid twins saunter past over by new Canadian owners, D. F. Barnes. the chained up remains of Henry Robb’s Secondly, BiFab’s bailout also exemplified a shipyard in Leith, where their father had commitment to the renewables sector as a previously worked. ‘Letter from America’ source of industrial rejuvenation. Wind tur- narrates a now familiar tale that spans the bine fabrication was a crucial projection of Highland Clearances of the eighteenth and present and future prosperity in the late nineteenth centuries through to the industrial 2010s. Yet, in November 2020, the UK and clearances that were then ravaging Scot- Scottish governments issued a joint statement land’s Central Belt. Scottish manufacturing concluding that it was not possible for them workers once again faced the dislocation of to provide further financial support for BiFab redundancy when Burntisland Fabricators as the yards again faced being mothballed or (BiFab) was threatened with closure during closed owing to lack of work, questionably 2017. BiFab are an engineering firm based citing the restriction imposed by EU state aid not far up the east coast from Leith, at yards rules. BiFab entered administration less than in Methil and Burntisland. They have an two weeks later because it was unable to pro- additional yard at Arnish on the Isle of vide the financial guarantees required to fulfil Lewis. On this occasion, as at Henry Robb’s a contract for eight jackets—the foundations in 1983, workers occupied the yards to pro- of wind turbines—which would have pro- tect them from closure. Unlike the 1980s vided over 400 jobs. shipbuilders, the 2010s engineers were at Under devolution, Scotland has experi- least temporarily successful. enced a remarkable transformation in © 2021 The Authors. The Political Quarterly published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Political Quarterly Publishing Co (PQPC) 57 This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. electricity generation, but the much antici- take ‘imagination, determination and consis- pated accompanying industrial benefits have tency’.1 It may also require public entrepre- not been delivered. This article assesses the neurial risk-taking and a commitment to development of the current position at BiFab more active state-led forms of industrial and what it reveals about hopes for renew- development which diverges from the SNP’s able energy in Scotland. Firstly, it overviews approach over the last thirteen years. energy’s significance in Scottish politics, emphasising how perceptions of British gov- ernment failures on electricity and oil have Nationalist energy perspectives shaped the Scottish National Party’s (SNP) Fiona Hyslop, Scotland’s Economy Secretary, approach since it came to power in 2007. prefaced the UK and Scottish governments’ Secondly, it reviews the progress of renew- joint statement on BiFab by explaining that ables industrial development that has fal- ‘We have left no stone unturned in our tered despite world-leading alterations in search for a solution to the challenges faced power generation. Major changes in Scottish by the business.’2 Hyslop summarised energy policy and institutional political econ- mounting frustrations with Scottish renew- omy are required to achieve greater rewards ables’ failure to live up to earlier expecta- from renewables. The conclusion reinforces tions. Then First Minister, Alex Salmond, older nationalist criticisms of the British mis- forcibly communicated these during the 2011 management of Scottish natural resources. Scottish parliamentary election campaign Yet, the same arguments can now be used when he now infamously declared that Scot- against the Scottish government’s commit- land could be the ‘Saudi Arabia of renewable ment to a market-led approach to achieving energy’. Boris Johnson recently shamelessly a greener economy. SNP politicians and acti- plagiarised Salmond’s bombastic phrasing vists have often cited Norway and other when he stated that, ‘As Saudi Arabia is to northern European social democracies as oil, the UK is to wind—a place of almost sources of inspiration, but they have so far limitless resource, but in the case of wind failed to develop an interventionist industrial without the carbon emissions and without policy in a sector they have designated as the damage to the environment.’ In the same central to Scotland’s future. speech, Johnson also appropriated the terms Oil is a key historical reference point for of one of his other main political opponents, understanding the politics of renewables. the Labour Party, by announcing support for The North Sea was formative for the cohort a ‘green industrial revolution’ in which Bri- of nationalists who led the SNP into govern- tain would reprise its rightful place at the ment for the first time in 2007. Alex Salmond helm of innovative technological develop- and his cabinet understood renewables ment.3 through the earlier experience of British state Johnson’s statement is a reminder that, mismanagement of oil’s industrial potential despite the tendency for Britain’s twentieth and fiscal benefits. However, offshore wind century to be conceptualised in terms of is a different entity to North Sea oil: it does national ‘decline’, ‘techno-nationalist’ aspira- not offer the prospect of instant enrichment tions also strongly conditioned the perspec- or labour-intensive extraction. Achieving tive of its elites. ‘Declinism’ was projected industrial modernisation through innovative through Britain’s failure to live up to its technologies is a challenge for a small nation nineteenth century reputation as the ‘work- with a devolved rather than independent shop of the world’. Energy played a central government. Yet, the abundance of renew- role in the postwar drive to achieve scientific able resources within Scotland, and expertise and technological leadership. The state in relevant engineering sectors—exemplified invested in a succession of much-maligned by BiFab’s long history in shipbuilding and uneconomic nuclear power station models oil rig manufacturing—mean that establish- during an ultimately futile search for export ing a significant renewables manufacturing markets. Only the privatisation of power presence is a surmountable goal. As BBC generation ultimately brought these adven- Scotland’s economics correspondent, Dou- tures to an end. Declinist narratives on the glas Fraser, observed though, that would 58 E WAN G IBBS The Political Quarterly, Vol. 92, No. 1 © 2021 The Authors. The Political Quarterly published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Political Quarterly Publishing Co (PQPC) left viewed the archaic British state as no Shipbuilders ‘work-in’ culmination during longer fit for purpose. Partisans of this thesis October 1972 exemplified this trend. Mara- —most prolifically and influentially Tom thon, the American oil rig manufacturer, Nairn and Perry Anderson—argued that Bri- took over John Brown’s shipyard in Clyde- tain lacked a culture of scientific research bank—the iconic home of the Queen Mary and was blighted by a pre-modern form of and the QE2. UK government officials and aristocratic capitalism and a pre-national trade unionists had heavily lobbied Mara- state.4 thon for investment. They wished to assure Nairn recognised that the discovery of pet- the Americans of Scotland’s engineering pro- roleum reserves in the northern reaches of wess and the cooperativeness of the work- the British North Sea, which